


i'm sick of love.

by sumirufus



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Gen, Memorials of a sort, Miserableass Christmas, NDRV3 Spoilers, Platonic Bed Sharing, Post-Canon, crying is good for you, dreams are kinder than reality but only for some, mentions of Chabashira Tenko/Yumeno Himiko - Freeform, mentions of Momota Kaito/Harukawa Maki - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 18:37:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12348342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sumirufus/pseuds/sumirufus
Summary: [NDRV3 ENDGAME SPOILERS]Of dreams, and the pieces of memories you bring into your home, so you can hold on just a little longer.





	i'm sick of love.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been awake nearly 24 hours and i have spent the majority of them crying over these three

"Saihara-kun," Akamatsu pokes him lightly on the cheek. "Are you paying attention to my lesson?"

Shuichi flinches, snapping his attention back to her. Her tone was scolding, but the crinkles around her eyes betray her smile. Her face is so close, and his own flushes, hurriedly looking anywhere but at her.

“Sorry,” He mumbles, reaching for his hat -- when his fingers grasp air, and he ends up smacking himself in the face, Akamatsu’s laughter rings like bells, a far sweeter sound than anything the piano could ever produce, Shuichi thinks. 

“Shall we start again?”

“Yeah.”

And her hands guide his on the keys, the warmth of her body pressed against him in her lab; her hands are soft, warm, comforting. He peeks over to look at her again, and the smile that illuminates her face makes his heart  _ thump-thump-thump  _ in his chest. Does she know how pretty she is? He wishes he had the courage to tell her.

“Saihara-kun, want to try a duet?” She asks and he nearly chokes in his rush to say  _ yes. _

But as soon as he reaches to play the first note, the piano starts screaming.

* * *

 

He opens his eyes. 

Yumeno is groaning herself awake on his left. Harukawa is flailing around on his right, and eventually manages to shut off the damned alarm that shrieked them all awake. There is a moment of silence, two, three, then--

“Gotta pee,”  Yumeno mutters, and slides out of bed. She turns on the lamp on her side of the bed and shuffles out of the bedroom they all share. Shuichi sighs and sits up, running a hand through his hair. Harukawa shifts to blink up at him with tired eyes; the bags under them betray how little sleep she’s been getting lately. 

None of them can bear to sleep alone anymore, as much as Harukawa in particular hates to admit it.

“Sorry,” She manages, rolling back onto her side. “I guess I set one by accident.”

“It’s okay,” He returns, but there’s a part of him that  _ isn’t  _ okay with it. The part of him that wanted his happy dream to last forever. It ends like this every time he has that dream; as soon as he’s about to play his duet with the girl who has haunted him since his current ‘self’ was born, the illusion shatters. 

Just once. Just once, he wants to stay long enough to play with her, their song he hasn’t yet heard.

Yumeno shuffles back in and clambers back into bed, grumbling something about the draft in the bathroom. It’s something Shuichi has chosen to live with; their shared apartment isn’t exactly the nicest place, but it’s out of the way, and doesn’t draw attention to them. The money they receive every so often from Team Danganronpa would be more than enough to let them move to a better place, but at least they don’t get recognised often in this neighbourhood. 

It’s like they can pretend the show -- the  _ game  _ \-- that thrust the three of them into purchasing this place never happened.

“I had a dream,” Yumeno says after she’s switched off the light. It’s easier to talk like this in the dark, they’ve found.

“About Chabashira-san?”

“Yeah,” Yumeno turns over to face Shuichi, leaning her forehead on his arm. “She was fussing over me eating again. But when I,” She falters. Shuichi searches for her hand beneath the covers and squeezes it gently. “When I turned to look at her, she was-- When she went into the cage--” 

Talking like this in the dark is easier, because when one of them starts crying, it’s easier to hide. Yumeno’s voice is thick with her tears; Shuichi can feel her shaking against him, and his stomach twists. 

He doesn’t know what to say to her; he never does. What can any of them say to each other? Platitudes do nothing; they all know the pain each other is suffering, but they can’t alleviate any of it. The three of them are broken pieces, but they don’t fit together in  _ quite _ the right way they all hope and dream for. 

Maki rolls over and reaches for Yumeno, placing her hand on her arm. They remain in silence as Yumeno weeps softly, until eventually her breathing evens out once more. 

They don’t let go of her even once they’ve returned to sleep.

Shuichi doesn’t have any more dreams, that night.

* * *

 

He goes out one day, on his own (even though he  _ hates  _ doing that). His own hat is somewhat iconic, so he wraps himself in a scarf, a medical mask, and a beanie Yumeno has taken to wearing. It’s the middle of winter, so he can get away with concealing his face like this without seeming  _ too  _ suspicious.

He takes care to avoid Yumeno while he’s wearing the mask; pure white though it may be, he  _ knows  _ the sight of people with masks brings back a pain that he never wants to inflict on her again.

Shuichi can barely lug his purchase into their apartment on his own, but he manages, while Yumeno and Harukawa look on in bewilderment.

Harukawa opens her mouth to make some kind of remark, until she sees what exactly it is Shuichi has brought into their home. Her eyes soften in a way he isn’t entirely sure she’s aware she does, and she moves to help him take the thing out of the damned box. 

The keyboard looks out of place in their traditional style apartment, but the three of them look on with satisfaction when they’ve finished setting it up. Yumeno turns on the power and gives him a pointed look. 

He touches one key and the sound fills the room. 

A keyboard’s sound doesn’t compare to a real piano, but he finds that fact somewhat fitting. 

He cracks his knuckles.

* * *

 

A week later Harukawa throws a pair of headphones at him.

“Please,” Her tone is dry as a desert. “Use these.”  _ You’re awful  _ hangs in the air, but she has the tact not to say it. He accepts them gratefully; he doesn’t want another noise complaint from the neighbours.

The headphones somehow make him feel closer to the music. Perhaps it’s because they turn it into a private thing; it’s the opposite of what Akamatsu played for, but then again, he’s not the Super High School Level Pianist. The shaking melodies he’s been teaching himself from the Beginner’s Guide To Piano and other such books aren’t for the world; they’re for him, and the smile that grows fainter in his memories with each passing day.

(His book contains  _ that song _ , the one that played with her swinging from the rope, and he  _ rips  _ the pages out of the book and tears them into as many pieces as he can.

Harukawa volunteers to dispose of the mess. He’s never been more grateful to her.)

Eventually, a few weeks after he shredded the book, he can hold together a few songs from memory. It’s nothing impressive, but it fills the gaping hole in him with something other than the face he can’t quite remember perfectly anymore. When he removes the headphones, he becomes acutely aware it’s pitch black outside and Yumeno has fallen asleep on their couch; she must have been waiting for him. Guilt gnaws at him, so he turns off the keyboard and hoists Yumeno to their bed and tucks her in. The realisation of how late it is makes him want to just go to bed, too, but the third member of their little trio is missing.

It doesn’t take much to find her, though.

When he steps outside of their apartment, Shuichi notices Harukawa’s figure in the yard, a thin blanket draped around her shoulders in such a familiar way he almost breaks down crying.

She’s looking at the stars -- well, what’s visible of them in the city. He’d noticed the increase in books about astrology around the house lately, but for her sake, he and Yumeno had remained quiet about it, the same way they don’t comment on Yumeno’s increased interest in watching martial arts movies on TV.

They’re hanging on to what’s left of their loved ones, now that time has worn away little details they’ll never remember anymore.

Shuichi heads down to the yard.

“You’ll catch a cold,” His voice is soft as he approaches. Harukawa lets out a small hum, acknowledgement and nothing more. Her fingers are red and cracked with the cold temperature -- it’s getting closer to the end of December -- and she’s shivering, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the sky.

“I dream about him sometimes,” She says after a moment, fingers curling around the blanket. “But nothing happens. I just… See him. So far away from me. And no matter how far I run, I can never make it. And then he’s gone.”

It’s the loneliest thing she has ever said since they moved in together. Shuichi feels a stab of guilt; he knows he can’t help it, but he knows his dreams of Akamatsu are always… ‘Pleasant’, he’ll say. It’s not fair for Harukawa and Yumeno to be haunted the way they are. 

“Come inside,” He says, instead of addressing her words. Harukawa shakes her head.

“I’ll go to bed soon,” She promises, and her eyes are unbearably sad. “... I want to look at them a little more.”

“... Maybe we should get a telescope,” Shuichi suggests, squinting at the sky. “You’d be able to see them better.”

“No,” Her voice is firm, set in some decision he knows he’ll never fully be privy to -- for all that the game changed them, some things remain the same. “This is… Enough.”

“Don’t stay out too long,” He says instead of questioning her; he hopes she appreciates that. She hums again, eyes still trained on the few stars above. 

He doesn’t sleep until she’s safely back in bed. 

* * *

He falls asleep on the keyboard one day.

He isn’t truly aware of it, though, because in his dream he’s still playing in their living room, still muttering every time he hits a wrong note -- which is still embarrassingly often.

Akamatsu taps her foot in rhythm to whatever he’s stumbling through at that moment, humming along -- truthfully, she’s carrying the melody entirely. The piece comes clumsily to an end, but she claps anyway.

“You’re improving, Saihara-kun!” She enthuses, coming over to lean over him and watch his hands on the keys. “You’ve got a knack for this. Maybe you’ll be taking my title one day!”

“I don’t think that’s on the cards,” He responds nervously; she really is a Piano Freak, not to be conscious of how  _ close  _ she is, how --

She’s not warm.

That’s when he understands and wakes with a start. 

The living room is cold. He shuts off the keyboard.

* * *

Christmas comes without much ceremony.

None of them want to go outside; “Too many couples,” Yumeno grumbles, as if she’s annoyed by their PDA, and not still longing for someone she’s lost.

They all are.

Maki goes out and buys as much fried chicken as she can fit in her arms (since she cut her hair, short, cropped close to her head, she gets recognised less and less) and the three of them sit in the living room with a shitty Christmas movie from America playing on TV, and stuff their faces with greasy takeaway food.

Once they’ve done that, they dump the remains in the kitchen (Harukawa mutters that they really should clean it some time, and it’s true, it’s  _ disgusting _ , but none of them can really bring themselves to care) and Yumeno vanishes briefly.

She brings some candles to the living room, along with some printouts. 

“... I thought we could do a memorial,” She mutters, dumping her items on the ground. A candle rolls over the image of Chabashira at the top of her pile. Shuichi didn’t think it was possible for his heart to break any more for her, but it does. 

“That sounds good,” He says, and picks the loose candle up. Harukawa nods to Yumeno’s visible relief. She moves the image of Chabashira next to her (it’s printed from the  _ Danganronpa  _ website, Shuichi realises, but she’d cut out anything related to the show from the picture) and the next face to appear is Momota. He and Yumeno pretend not to hear the whimper Harukawa makes. She reaches for the picture anyway.

Next is Akamatsu. He remembers Momota telling him ‘men shouldn’t cry’, but the tears prick at his eyes unbidden. His hands are shaking when he accepts the picture from Yumeno. 

She’s smiling in the image, gentle and reliable. He remembers her smiling at him like that what feels like a lifetime ago. It’s been less than a year since their waking nightmare ended, but they’ve only moved into a new one since.

“You printed everyone?” He hears Harukawa say, so he looks back at the pictures Yumeno has been spreading across the tatami floor. Yonaga, Amami, Toujou, Hoshi, Gokuhara, Ouma, Iruma, Keebo, even Shinguji and Shirogane. He can’t hide his surprise at the last two, and neither can Harukawa; she’s gotten worse at hiding her expressions, since they left.

“Yeah,” Yumeno pulls her beanie down lower. “They were victims too… I guess. It didn’t feel right to leave them out.” 

What can they possibly say to that? He exchanges a look with Harukawa, equally as lost as he is; the ones they lost were lost only to Monobear and Team Danganronpa. Chabashira was murdered by Shinguji before Yumeno’s very eyes -- it can’t have been easy for her to include Shinguji’s portrait. 

“So what do we do?” Harukawa asks, shifting the conversation away from the point she’d brought up. She reaches to tug her hair, but is met with nothing -- it’s not an unfamiliar sight to Shuichi anymore. 

“I thought we could light the candles, and… I don’t know. Pray or something,” Her eyes drift to the image of Yonaga as she says that. “... Prayer is a good way to restore MP, or something like that…”

So that’s what they do; Shuichi gets delegated to lighting duty while Harukawa and Yumeno pin the pictures to the wall, a board of dead faces. They arrange the candles underneath them, turn off the lights, and kneel in front of their deceased classmates.

Shuichi has never prayed before; at least, not as he exists now. Maybe the him before the game did. He hasn’t visited any shrines since he left the game. ‘Saihara Shuichi’ isn’t particularly religious, either. So instead, he thinks.

He thinks about his audition video. He thinks about Momota, and Ouma. He thinks about Keebo and Shirogane, and Amami. 

He thinks about Akamatsu. In a way, he always is.

If he’d been better, could he have saved her? If he’d been better, could he have helped her? Could the two of them have worked together and outed Shirogane before anyone else had to die? … Could they have saved Amami together? 

If it hadn’t been for Danganronpa, would the snivelling creep he used to be have ever met the girl whose eyes reflected nothing? Could they have changed each other if they’d met? 

Would it be better if they’d never met at all?

It was funny, how the game had given him someone who meant the world to him, and ripped her away immediately. He almost laughs. 

He cries instead. 

When he opens his eyes, Yumeno and Harukawa are crying too. The candlelight flickers gently in their cold, cold living room. Yumeno moves and grips onto Harukawa; in turn, Harukawa reaches and tugs Shuichi’s sleeve. The three of them huddle together, the only warmth any of them have left, and they cry harder than any of them have before.

They stay that way for what feels like a long, long time.

 

Shuichi doesn’t dream that night.

**Author's Note:**

> this work is very much inspired by other extremely talented authors on this site who write post-canon ndrv3 fics that rip my soul apart, and also by the MMDers on niconico who Also rip my soul apart.
> 
> title's from the deco*27 song MKDR, used in one aforementioned MMD that made me have a crisis and just fucking cry for like an hour. 
> 
> marking this as complete for now because it had a point that i lost so i might revisit it in the future...


End file.
